IX 



WHEN THE LEAF IS WOO'D 

 FROM OUT THE BUD 



T S there a whim or fancy in feminine attire 

 ** for which one may not find a precedent 

 in nature? Did ever a woman wear a silk 

 petticoat with more elaborate ruffles upon 

 ruffles, and scallops, than are flaunted in any 

 garden by the luxurious kale, whose tran- 

 sient glory limply departs in a dish of 

 greens? Scarcely less elaborate in form and 

 coloring are the curly-cued leaves of that 

 highly evolved chromatic triumph, a head of 

 lettuce in russet, bronze, and old rose. How 

 dainty too are the fairy fripperies worn by 

 parsley, parsnip, carrots, and our common 

 roadside yarrow, though all yield in grace to 

 Miss Asparagus, whose ethereal leafage is 

 so perilously like green aigrettes that one al- 

 most suspects her of plagiarism. 



Between the Whistler-like delicacy of the 



149 



